Flo Sports

[y_jack_lok]

Well, well, well. I'm watching RMC football at Bridgewater. At halftime I switch to listening to the RMC announcers who are there and broadcasting on the radio. As their halftime show is winding down, I switch back to the video stream to watch the second half and see scrolling across the top of the screen "YOUR EVENT HAS ENDED". I think this has to be because they don't have a graphic for halftime. But, no, in fact Flo is no longer broadcasting the game and the first half is already archived with the notation on the Flo schedule for today that the game is completed. I tried multiple ways to reconnect with no luck. I cannot imagine that this is a problem with the Bridgewater broadcast of the game. Now, 8+ minutes into the second half, the game is back on Flo. Maybe someone at Bridgewater did make a mistake. Who knows. Regardless, there are clearly problems that need to be resolved.

[Pat Coleman]

Heard lots of bad things about the Wilkes-Muhlenberg broadcast of football today. That's a conference in the third year of its contract and what we got was the one robot camera, no clock on the screen, no broadcasters. It was difficult to know where we were in the game.

[ronk]

But even with a Flo Sports podcast, a reminder of how spoiled we are with others offering content free of charge...  Thanks Pat!

https://d3hoops.com/notables/2025/09/d3sports-conversation-kathy-mcconnell-miller

Pat,
  Outstanding interview with a great guest. Coach's enthusiasm for coaching, D3, and basketball in general was refreshing.
  Re-encountered CMU's assistant(Megan) evaluating players at an AAU tourney this past June. When Megan was herself a rising senior, she was similarly a focus of my evaluations. Think she'll be a significant factor in CMU's program. 

[wildcat11]

The pre-roll ads when you first try to view a game blows.  I'm already paying a sub to watch Division III football and your forcing me to watch a 30 second ad?  Get bent Flosports.

[ziggy]

Heard lots of bad things about the Lyco-Wilkes broadcast of football today. That's a conference in the third year of its contract and what we got was the one robot camera, no clock on the screen, no broadcasters. It was difficult to know where we were in the game.

Does this put them in breach of their contract and what are the ramifications?

[IC798891]

Heard lots of bad things about the Lyco-Wilkes broadcast of football today. That's a conference in the third year of its contract and what we got was the one robot camera, no clock on the screen, no broadcasters. It was difficult to know where we were in the game.

A small price to pay, Pat. The money coming in from the FloSports contract is saving jobs, saving sports, heck maybe even saving the institution.

[Ron Boerger]

Heard lots of bad things about the Lyco-Wilkes broadcast of football today. That's a conference in the third year of its contract and what we got was the one robot camera, no clock on the screen, no broadcasters. It was difficult to know where we were in the game.

A small price to pay, Pat. The money coming in from the FloSports contract is saving jobs, saving sports, heck maybe even saving the institution.

I'm sure you forgot the /s.

[Pat Coleman]

Heard lots of bad things about the Wilkes-Muhlenberg broadcast of football today. That's a conference in the third year of its contract and what we got was the one robot camera, no clock on the screen, no broadcasters. It was difficult to know where we were in the game.

Since this post has drawn some attention today, I went back and reviewed the archive of the game and will amend my statement to note that as the third quarter started, the Wilkes broadcasters were audible.

I did not conduct a full review of the second half but will assume that they stayed.

[IC798891]

Heard lots of bad things about the Lyco-Wilkes broadcast of football today. That's a conference in the third year of its contract and what we got was the one robot camera, no clock on the screen, no broadcasters. It was difficult to know where we were in the game.

A small price to pay, Pat. The money coming in from the FloSports contract is saving jobs, saving sports, heck maybe even saving the institution.

I'm sure you forgot the /s.

Anyone who has been following this thread is well aware of my opinion on Flo

[Ron Boerger]

None other than Bill Simmons (formerly of ESPN fame) called out Flo$port$ for their inferior (and infuriating) product after his experience this weekend - see the excerpt from his "BS Podcast":  https://x.com/BQuillmanQcast/status/1975192844592886041

[WUPHF]

None other than Bill Simmons (formerly of ESPN fame) called out Flo$port$ for their inferior (and infuriating) product after his experience this weekend - see the excerpt from his "BS Podcast":  https://x.com/BQuillmanQcast/status/1975192844592886041

I used this as an excuse to review the Flo Sports websites and social media to check for more exclusive content and as expected, it is very limited, with more Division I and Division II content than Division III as a percentage of the number of conferences signed.

[y_jack_lok]

Interesting to listen to. I'd never heard of Bill Simmons.

This is off the above topic, but thought I'd share it FWIW. Last week I met a woman out here in Saint Louis whose granddaughter plays soccer at W&L. She told me when the ODAC schools voted on the FloSports question that W&L was the only school to vote no. I assume she got this info from her granddaughter. This makes me wonder if at W&L there was advance knowledge that Flo was being considered by the ODAC, or if the granddaughter learned it after the fact. It also makes me wonder if student athletes at other ODAC schools knew about the possibility of Flo before it happened, or if they learned about it afterwards. I guess what I'm really curious about is just how open the conference and schools were in advanve about the prospect of signing with Flo. The ODAC made the announcement in late June/early July so at most schools students probably weren't on campus.

[Ryan Scott (Hoops Fan)]

None other than Bill Simmons (formerly of ESPN fame) called out Flo$port$ for their inferior (and infuriating) product after his experience this weekend - see the excerpt from his "BS Podcast":  https://x.com/BQuillmanQcast/status/1975192844592886041

Funny enough, I was watching that Bowdoin-Emerson game live that he referenced.  His daughter scored a screamer two minutes in.  I don't think that Bowdoin stream is anything spectacular, but it's a lot better than most WSoc broadcasts.

[Kuiper]

Flo isn't producing the games, even for these D-I games. It's just a streaming service when it comes to game day broadcasts.

His point was that the broadcast he watched was basic, similar to the many Division III streams that he has seen over the years.

Every league other than the Little East has stated that the Flo Sports arrangement will enhance overall production quality.

In the ODAC podcast, they explained that as better cameras and microphones among other things.

In the ideal world, schools are getting more money from the Flo contract than it cost them to livestream the games in the past and they spend that extra money on better cameras and microphones.  In the SCIAC, Pomona-Pitzer started using a drone for overhead second camera angle footage (at least in men's soccer) after they signed the FloSports deal, which seemed to me like a very tangible improvement in the broadcast.  La Verne, by contrast, still had the exact same poor, hard to see, stream from the top of the bleachers with no announcers.  My guess is that Pomona didn't really need the money, but agreed to go along with others in the conference that did, and used it to add some extras to the broadcast, while La Verne needed the money for other things and so its stream stayed the same.

Before the season, I made this comment about the quality of FloSports' broadcast in Year 1 of the SCIAC deal.  I recently had a chance to catch a La Verne men's soccer broadcast and I can report that the broadcast is 100% better this year:

- Better camera quality, which suggests they upgraded the equipment
- Camera is placed closer to field level instead of at the top of the stadium where the players look like ants.  This puts it below the lights and makes all the difference in lighting quality on the field.  The camera is also on the opposite side of the field where you can see the fans, which gives a sense of the atmosphere (La Verne gets a decent number of fans)
- They have multiple cameras, and switch between different shots appropriately.
- They clearly have manual camera operators, rather than the AI Veo you see a ton now in non-Flo conferences.
- They now have announcers.  They had two in the game I watched.  They sounded like students, but students in a communications program trying to sound professional, which is a great way to give students practical experience.
- They used a score widget with the running clock, rather than a second still camera providing a blurry view of the scoreboard.

I think Flo said something about requiring certain improvements, including having announcers, by Year 2 and 3 and it seems to be coming true.  Caltech also has an announcer this year, which it did not have last season, and so does Whittier, which I think means all schools now have announcers.

[Pat Coleman]

That's the natural progression we were told would happen. Sounds like good news at La Verne, anyway.